


A Miracle, If You Will

by SneakyBoyMerlin



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Merlin barely touches his food when he’s stressed (which is often), Near Death Experiences, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Will Lives (Merlin), don’t expect consistent updates lol, neither can they, the author cannot tell if the mains are a couple, unhealthy eating habits, vague medical practices
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:14:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28308843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SneakyBoyMerlin/pseuds/SneakyBoyMerlin
Summary: The arrow doesn’t pierce any of Will’s vital organs, but they still need to get him to Camelot. However, nobody expects him to actuallystaythere.In other words: Will doesn’t just survive. Hethrives.
Relationships: Gaius & Merlin (Merlin), Merlin & Will (Merlin), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 19
Kudos: 43





	A Miracle, If You Will

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Will Appreciation Fest, hosted by @panharmonium on Tumblr!!! You can find me on my Merlin blog, @sneakyboymerlin

Merlin wiped the tears from his eyes with a hand still grimy from battle. Will’s death had seemed like such a sure thing back in Ealdor. It was by mere chance that the arrow hadn’t pierced anything vital, missing his heart by a miracle of a margin. His friend’s life was already hanging by a thread as things were. If the arrow had struck true… 

He shook the thought from his head. There was still hope. There had to be. He’d promised Will that much.

His hand was clenched to the point of cramping. Holding it out before him, he watched the joints unfurl with the delicacy of a morning glory’s petals in the sun. _Still shaking._ He lowered it, curling his fingers back in the fabric of his jacket.

Even if Will did survive this, where did that leave him? Arthur had probably already told Uther that the man— _boy,_ really, he was only Merlin’s age after all—who was dying in the physician’s chambers had performed magic in front of his very eyes. If Will wasn’t burned on a funeral pyre, then he would be at the stake. And he would do so in Merlin’s place.

Dried blood coated the edges of Merlin’s fingernails. He scraped it away with a single-minded focus, but the substance lingered. He hadn’t the heart to leave his post at Will’s bedside to clean himself. Will was only sleeping, pulse steady and heartbeat strong, but Merlin could not erase those moments of fear from his mind—the arrow in Will’s chest, the unresponsiveness after he’d said what he thought to be his final goodbye. 

Through his tears, Merlin had removed the arrow and, with both hands on Will’s chest, used his magic to patch up the wound. It wasn’t much, only enough to stop the bleeding, and it was clear that he wouldn’t last much longer if he didn’t get to a real physician. Gaius could help him in ways that Merlin, for all his magic, could not. Gods, Merlin had never felt so helpless as he did with Will’s life in his hands. He couldn’t lose him. 

He’d gone far enough ahead that Arthur, Gwen, and Morgana had yet to arrive. With more haste than when they’d left for Ealdor, Merlin had ridden back to Camelot, Will seated unconscious in the saddle before him. His friend’s head lolled limply against his shoulder with every jostle of the horse, held up only by Merlin’s presence at his back, a pillar of solid, steady support. He woke only briefly when they arrived in Camelot, allowing himself to be helped off the horse by Merlin, who in turn slung Will’s arm over his shoulder to carry his weight as they stumbled up to the physician’s chambers. The crowded halls parted for them, even more so when one of the knights—Sir Leon, who Merlin was beginning to see around often enough to recognize—had taken Will from his arms and carried him to Merlin’s home with Gaius. And here Merlin was, sitting anxious and docile, with nothing to do but wait for the other boy to wake. 

Several times, he had reached out to take Will’s hand or smooth over his hair, only to pull back at the last second when he saw the grime and gore still coating his fingers. Most of it was Will’s blood. He needed to be clean of it, but he couldn’t ask Gaius to fetch a pail of water for him, and he couldn’t very well do it himself until he knew for sure that Will would be alright. 

At the moment, Gaius was occupied with a mortar and pestle, grinding down some herb that would supposedly help the maimed tissue heal quicker. Merlin couldn’t be bothered to care what it was, though he knew he should. It would help Will. That was all that mattered. He failed to notice when the grinding sound came to a sudden halt, jumping when a hand, wrinkled with age, landed on his shoulder in a comforting gesture. 

“He is stable for now, Merlin. Perhaps you should wash up. You look like you could use a bath and a warm meal. When’s the last time you ate?”

He scrunched his brow as he tried to remember. “Breakfast.” Yesterday, to be exact, and the sunset was quickly closing in. It had taken all night and then some to get to Gaius, and even then, the food he had was not the most filling meal. The ache in his stomach became more pronounced as he realized how little he’d eaten, but he didn’t think he could keep anything down if he tried.

“I can prepare you something to eat, and when you finish getting cleaned up and get into a new pair of clothes, I’ll have it ready for you.”

“Thanks, Gaius,” he said, looking reluctantly away from his charge—from Gaius’ charge, that is—and smiling shakily up at his mentor. 

Gaius’ hand had yet to move from where it squeezed Merlin’s shoulder. He glanced down at the over-pronounced veins and could only picture the blood pumping through them, so close to the surface. It would take only one mishap for those hands to become stained red like his own. He quickly looked back to Will, but out of his peripheral vision, he saw the elder smile at him encouragingly. 

“You’d better head off, then.”

“Yeah…” But it was impossible to move from the spot. His arms felt weighted down, as if in chains. If he left Will, then there would be no way of knowing what was happening to him. The only images in his mind whenever he took his eyes off his friend were of his body going lax from shock and blood loss. It had been too close a call, and Merlin couldn’t shake the feeling that he hadn’t avoided that fate just yet. 

“Merlin, don’t you trust me to look after him?”

“Of course I do! You know I do! It’s just, h- he almost died, Gaius, and I could only watch as he faded.” His voice wavered on the last word, but if Gaius heard, he opted to ignore it. Unnoticed by Merlin and Gaius, Will’s eyes shifted beneath his lids.

“You did all that you could. If it was not for your intervention, he would not have made it at all.”

“But I should have done more! I should have been able to heal him entirely. I don’t have anything like the knowledge you do. It’s my fault that he almost died, for not practicing like you’ve wanted me to. He wouldn’t have even been hurt in the first place if I’d just seen, if I’d reacted quicker-”

“Merlin! You’re speaking utter nonsense. This is Kanen’s fault, not yours. You could never have predicted this, but you did everything you could for him. You showed great courage, from what I hear.”

Merlin cast his eyes down, lips twitching almost imperceptibly, but it did little to soothe his conflicting thoughts. He grasped Will’s hand tightly, despite the blood and mud on his hands, and clutched it desperately to his chest. “I can’t be without him. I left him once before, I can’t do it again.” He looked back up at Gaius, eyes begging for just a modicum of understanding.

The older man’s expression softened in realization. It was more than just friendship that kept Merlin stuck to Will’s side, against all rational thought. “Merlin, you’ve just been through a very traumatic event. It is perfectly normal to fear that it will repeat itself. You may not have lost him, but you feel like you’ve lost control over what will happen, don’t you?”

Hesitantly, Merlin nodded. 

“I will look after him. It will take only minutes to get the water, and then you’ll be right back here. Can you do that?”

Biting his lip, he nodded again, dropping Will’s hand and removing himself from the stool he’d been crouched on for hours. Taking one last look behind him, he shut the door with a gentleness usually reserved for the night hours, so as not to wake his mentor when he was sneaking in or out. Though this time, with Gaius’ eyes on his back, he was well aware that the only person he had to hide from was himself.

Even weighed down by his chainmail, it took less time than anticipated to get the water. He set a quick pace back to his chambers, memories of Will’s face distorted by agony flashing through his mind. Towards the end, he broke into a sprint. How the water managed not to slosh out, he didn’t know. 

Bursting through the door, he was welcomed by the exact same setting he’d left: Gaius calmly tending to various tasks, and Will, grey-faced but merely sleeping. Alive.

Merlin let loose the breath he’d been holding and walked, far more casually, towards his own room. Gaius gave him a cursory glance but, besides being a bit red in the face, Merlin appeared fine. He took the steps to his room one at a time, confident in the knowledge that if anything were to change, he would hear Gaius call. Although, if anything did change, and it turned out he’d wasted Will’s last few precious moments doing a task he could do at any other time…

No, that was a useless thought, and it wasn't likely that anything would change in the ten minutes or so that a scrub-down and change of clothes would take. Will would wake up, and Merlin would need to be there for him then. He had time to tend to himself until Will woke.

The blood came off with surprising ease as he lathered the soap over his hands. He had heated the water with no more than three words, and it wasn’t until he ran it over the muscles of his abused body that he realized how sore he was from the battle and his swift ride back, not to mention his hours-long slouch on the stool. The ill-fitting mail left abrasions where it had rubbed his neck near raw, though the collar of his shirt had prevented further damage. The rest of his body was littered with cuts and bruises from Kanen’s men—before he’d summoned the wind, that is. Maybe if he’d done something sooner, Will wouldn’t by lying on a patient’s cot in the next room. Then again, maybe Merlin would be on the pyre, and Arthur would be the one lighting it. And then who would protect the prat? 

He splashed his face one last time before drying himself off and getting into some clean clothes. When he returned, there was a steaming bowl of—he sniffed the air—porridge, if he identified the aroma correctly, sitting on the table. A glance at Will told him that nothing had changed, so he took a seat and started eating. 

“Not so fast!” Gaius warned. The roiling of his stomach informed him that the physician was right. He hadn’t eaten in over a day, and putting too much into his deprived stomach at once wouldn’t end pretty. Halfway through, he paused, pushing the bowl away from him. He didn’t see the frown Gaius was giving him as he laid his head in his hands, elbows resting on the table to support them. Arthur wouldn’t kill Will. Or at least, that’s what Merlin told himself. He’d allowed Merlin to take Will to Gaius—well, he hadn’t done much to stop Merlin, anyway. It had to mean something.

It wasn’t until Will’s soft breathing became rapid and turned into a choking cough that Merlin lifted his head, toppling his chair in his hurry to reach Will’s side. He helped sit the injured boy up until the coughing calmed, rubbing his back and bringing a cup of water to his lips. 

With one last agonizing wheeze, Will seemed to finally gather his surroundings, focusing pointedly on the face hovering over him. “Merlin?”

“Yeah, Will,” he said, smiling despite himself. “I’m here.”

Will blinked up at him, confusion written plain across his face, and then looked to his chest with a wince. Though now, instead of a threadbare shirt with a protruding arrow shaft, his chest was wrapped in blood-soaked bandages. “I’m…” he started, apprehensively, and then he threw his head back with a wide grin. _“Alive._ I’m alive.”

The other boy’s laughter, though weak, jolted Merlin out of his misery, but then his tone turned serious once more. “What the _hell_ happened?”

“I almost lost you, you ass!” And then, because he just couldn’t help himself, he threw his arms around Will, careful of the wound on his left side. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

Will stiffened in surprise at first but quickly melted into the embrace, patting Merlin’s back with tentative care. “Trust me, I don’t plan on going through that ever again. Once was more than enough.”

As if remembering himself, Merlin pulled back, grimacing as if he was the one wounded. “It’s- it’s good to have you back, Will.”

Will offered a bright smile, but one Merlin knew well enough to see through. His face was still as pinched as it had been ever since he’d saved Arthur. “And where exactly have I been brought back to?” he asked in innocent curiosity.

“Erm… welcome to Camelot.”

He bolted upright, only to fall back down with a grimace, hand clutching at his chest. “Why’ve you brought me to Camelot? Your bloody prince thinks I’m a sorcerer!”

Will didn’t have to explain his fears: Merlin knew them as well as he knew the back of his own hand. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You saved Arthur’s life, after all. He has to see sense.”

“Your optimism is very endearing, Merlin, but it’s not half the comfort you think it is.”

“I know, but just… try to have a little faith in Arthur.” 

“Yeah, I did it before, and look how that turned out.”

“We saved Ealdor, didn’t we?”

 _”You_ saved Ealdor.”

“But-”

“Boys!” Gaius raised his voice louder than his lectures, and Merlin immediately dropped his gaze. “I think it would be best to save the dramatics for when Will is not recovering from a deadly arrow wound.”

Merlin’s face heated like a forge. He turned away from Gaius’ side of the room to hide the moisture that sprang to his eyes at the remembered guilt, only to meet Will’s perceptive stare head-on. 

“You mind introducing your friend here?” he asked Merlin, with equal parts sarcasm to gentleness. 

“Um, Gaius,” he answered, gesturing behind him awkwardly. “He’s the court physician. I’m his ward.”

Will frowned at this, but made no comment on whatever it was that caused this reaction. “Well, court physician, am I gonna make it?”

“Yes, if you save your breath for something besides yelling in my chambers.” 

Will cleared his throat. “My mistake.”

 _“Indeed.”_ With that, Gaius began checking Will’s vitals, which for some reason involved pulling open his eyelids wide enough that he thought an eye would pop out. Satisfied with his findings, Gaius left Merlin and Will alone together, probably more out of an understanding for their friendship than any strict necessity. They sat in a strained sort of comradery for some time, Merlin only occasionally daring to look up before darting his eyes back down again. 

Will had to speak up. “I heard you earlier, when you were talking with Gaius. Thought it was a bad dream for a minute there, but…”

“What did you hear?” 

The reaction was one Will wasn’t familiar hearing from Merlin’s mouth. He would have sounded almost casual, if not for the rushed response, and the desperation in his tone. Much had changed for Merlin, it would seem, to elicit a response like that.

“Enough to know you’re not exactly taking this well.”

Merlin shook his head unconvincingly. “I’m fine. It’s you we need to worry about.” From the spot where Will was laying, he could see Merlin’s fingers dig into his palms with such force it could have broken skin. Will sighed.

“It’s not your fault. _I’m_ the one who shoved Arthur out of the way. Trust me, it would’ve been much worse if you hadn’t been there to heal me. I thought I was gone for good. What exactly did you do for me to last the whole ride to Camelot?”

“Er…” Merlin smiled sheepishly, and Will knew he’d succeeded in leveraging his guilt for now. “I’ve picked up a few healing spells since coming to Camelot.”

He squinted. “You’ve learned _more_ magic? In _Camelot?”_

“Well, where else would I have learned it?”

“That is not what’s wrong with that statement! Didn’t your mother tell you that they chop people’s heads off for even the slightest whiff of magic in Uther’s lands?”

This was met with an eye roll. “I know _that_ well enough. My first day in Camelot, I watched a man get beheaded for some simple enchantments.”

Will stared at him in shock. “And you decided to learn _more_ magic, while serving the prince no less! Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“Quiet down!” he shushed him, eyeing the door warily. “The spells just help me control my magic better, so it doesn’t come out on reflex so much.”

“I cannot imagine why Hunith sent you here,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is the most dangerous place for someone like you.”

Once again, Merlin sighed, as if Will was the one being irrational here. “She knows Gaius. He used to be a sorcerer. She thought he could help me learn to control it, and he has.”

“If he’s fixed you, then why did you stay?”

He hadn’t meant to say _fixed,_ but it was too late to take the word back. He watched with regret as Merlin tried to hide his flinch behind a stony expression. And then Will realized the rest of what he’d just blurted out.

_“I can’t be without him. I left him once before, I can’t do it again.”_

A cold numbness filled his chest where there had been a fiery pain only moments ago. He rose to his elbows to get closer to Merlin’s level. “Merlin, look, I’m-”

“No, no, it’s alright. You’re right. I should have gone back to Ealdor after I learned how to control it. Maybe then the situation with Kanen wouldn’t have been so grave, and you wouldn’t be here right now, and my mother would have never been hurt, and-”

”Merlin. _Merlin!_ Look at me.” He waited until Merlin’s eyes met his again, and hated himself for every tear he saw rolling down his friend’s cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I just missed you.”

Merlin sniffled before taking Will’s hand in his own. “I missed you too, Will. It’s just that, I have a home here now, and friends, and Arthur… well, he wouldn’t still be alive without me.”

“A problem shared.” Though why Merlin would protect a man who hates his kind, he didn’t think he could begin to wrap his head around. But then again, what had Ealdor done for either of them? And still, they’d risked everything to save their village. For the first time, he wondered—truly wondered—how deep Merlin’s love for Camelot ran. It couldn’t mean more than Ealdor, but the way Merlin spoke…

“And I promise we’re going to figure everything out, alright? Arthur is not his father. He’s not going to have you executed. I’d sooner turn myself in than let that happen to you.”

He fixed Merlin with a stern look. “You’d better not. If you do anything to endanger your reckless ass, I’m following right behind, you hear? You’re not gonna go off and have all the fun without me, are you?”

“Of course not.” Merlin’s laughter was like the sound of birds chirping with the rising sun. That was always Will’s favorite part of waking up. He felt the same sensation of peace when the first rays of gold took over the horizon, those spare, fleeting moments to himself before he had to roll out of his flimsy excuse for a bed and meet the waking village. He enjoyed that privacy, away from the exhausting day-to-day interactions as they worked the fields. Somehow, Merlin didn’t exhaust him the way the others did, even before he knew about the magic. Every moment with Merlin felt like a private one, something that was meant to be kept between the two lonely boys. Maybe it was something that only their particular ilk could understand, but it was… well, special. Something that was just theirs.

There was no telling what would happen with Merlin, and Will’s own future was even less certain, but he found himself to be content just holding Merlin’s hand through the night. When Merlin fell asleep in his chair, it was with his head resting on the cot by Will’s side. Will didn’t let go of his friend’s hand, even as he followed Merlin into restless dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> You thought Will living meant there’d be no angst? Fool. But don’t worry, there’s good times to come.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
